Kids Don't Follow.

Greetings all. One question today from yet another punk rockin' parent.

DEAR AskAPunk-
Last night I was driving my kids and their friends to basketball practice (they’re all 10 years old.) You probably don’t know this unless you have kids, but there are radio stations just for them now. Corporate and safe and sanitized. It is horrifying to admit how familiar I am with all the so-called “artists” and “musicians” that get played over and over on this station, the station and the “artists” created by the same corporation that uses one thing to promote and sell the other and round and around and around. The kids in the back seats don’t care. It is all poppy and catchy and all their friends listen to the same thing – so it is their ‘culture’ even if it is manufactured for them by a giant corporate behemoth. But here is the thing: None of this is me complaining. I think back to my life at 10 years old and it was so lousy that by 13 I was skating/drinkng beer/smoking pot and holding on to punk rock for dear life. It all meant something to me and it was more powerful than I can even put into words now. but I was one seriously messed up kid. I’ve spent the past 10 years trying to make sure that my kid doesn’t go through any of the stuff I did. So as Jonas Brothers plays in the background, a part of me, a large part, is glad my kid is thoughtful and engaged with his school and sports and his friends and he isn’t angry and lonely and shaking his fist at the world. It’s like I don’t want him to need the stuff I needed then to make it through… no matter how much we romanticize what it was like. If I was still that screwed up and angry now where would I be? Probably not dead, but certainly still unhappy and royally f-ed up. So I’m thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if my kid never got so deeply “into” music as I did. I would rather he was happy. So my question is: Should I even bring up the past? I don’t have a criminal record, but we have the pictures… and it is obvious that I was not a regular kid. After all my ‘good parenting’ I don’t want to undermine it all just by letting him in on what I was like at his age. - PopPunk

Dear PopPunk-
I asked my numerous punk mom & punk dad friends and the general consensus was: Why buy trouble? Wait until he asks about your collection of ‘weird’ music and then make sure that everything you tell him is the truth. Kids always know when you’re BS-ing them of course, but more importantly, they deserve the truth from their parents.… but don’t feel obligated to tell him EVERYthing. No parent of a 13 year old would willingly give up the moral high ground by confessing all his/her sins to the kids when they’re to young to understand it. Are you still at all connected to your parents (i.e.: his grandparents)? Are they in his life at all? I would have to guess that they’re not, unless they’ve seriously cleaned up their act… so I’m sure he’ll have questions about that sooner or later.

Of course I’m burying the lead here. The first thing I should have said was: Congratulations on surviving and for breaking the cycle. You’re an odds-beater, but I’m guessing you already know that. You certainly sound like you have the proper level of gratitude going. You’ve done a good job with your son so far, but as you well know, the real challenges are still ahead. I think the key is that you’ve got a good foundation started… From what I’m told, getting kids safely through the teenage years is a frustrating combination of good parenting, proper nutrition and flat-out luck.

On the good news/bad news side of things, I can tell you that ‘music’ itself will never be as monolithically important to this new crop of kids as it was to us. There will be exceptions of course (and thank god.) Some kids will pick up guitars and just know that this is the weapon they’ve been looking for since they were born, but the vast majority? Nah. There are to many other options now. Kids, from troubled families or not, have other things to cling to, like videogames and other ways to express themselves and to shout their fears/hopes/frustrations to the world… Namely: the Internet. The “dangers of the internet” are endlessly hyped to parents, but I think it also helps even the most disenfranchised kids connect and HOWL in ways that were impossible for the edgy loner of yesteryear.

I can understand any parent wanting to keep their kids away from the undertow of delusion, drugs and bad decisions that swirl around bands and making music, but, if the kid really wants that guitar, or rather really NEEDS that guitar, I think you have to honor that spirit if at all possible. Good luck.